NEW LP FROM SPIRAL WAVE NOMADS - "MAGNETIC SKY"

We are beyond psyched to once again be teaming up with Feeding Tube Records to release Magnetic Sky, the 3rd album from Spiral Wave Nomads. Longtime underground music head guru Byron Coley had this to say about it:

"Like its predecessors, 2019's Spiral Wave Nomads (TLR027/FTR 455) and First Encounters (TLR028/FTR577), Magnetic Sky is a deliriously enthralling set of expanding improvisations. Employing the strings of Albany's Eric Hardiman (Sky Furrows/Burnt Hills/Rambutan/Century Plants) and the drums of New Haven's Michael Kiefer (More Klementines/Rivener/Drifting North), along with electronic tone generation from the both of them, the music here flows like a torrent of highly charged particles… The duo creates massive sonic width and depth by piling up instrumental passages in layers. This allows the music to peel itself like a psychedelic onion spinning crazily in a forgotten pocket of deep space...a crazy and magical record for sure."

Some early reviews are in with Raven Sings the Blues singing its praise for the lead single "Pharoah's Lament," while Weirdo Shrine noted that, "it is mentally liberating to be able to trip on music like this." So get liberated!

Head on over to our store to check it out, along with other physical or digital releases from Spiral Wave Nomads, More Klementines, Ttotals, Debby Schwartz, Rivener, Myty Konkeror, Mercy Choir, Dwight Smith, and more!

TTOTALS ARE BACK WITH THEIR FIRST FULL-LENGTH, TOURING WITH PSYCHIC TEENS

Nashville’s outer blues duo Ttotals are back, creating dark, brooding twisters of sound, downing power lines with leagues-deep drums and haunting vocals, scorched-earth guitars, and flashes of sampled electronics...a careening vortex performing a muddy dance stomp along the Mississippi Delta as it flings the blues up to the heavens. The band will be hitting the road on November 8th with Psychic Teens in support of their first full-length, Let Everything Come Through, which sees its official release on November 11.

Tour dates:

November 8 - Asheville, NC at the Mothlight #

November 9 - Savannah, GA at Graveface Records #

November 10 - Athens, GA at the Caledonia Lounge #

November 11 - Birmingham, AL at the Nick #

November 12 - Atlanta, GA at 529 #

November 13 - Nashville, TN at the Eastroom #

November 14/15 - Austin, TX at TBA

November 16 - Dallas, TX at Crown & Harp   

# = with Psychic Teens

Let Everything Come Through was recorded and mixed by Tate Eskew at Zero Art Studios and mastered by Carl Saff in Chicago. It will be available in both vinyl and digital formats from our website and most online stores on November 11, 2014.

Check the promo video below...

MICHAEL BEACH CONTINUES TO EXPLORE, BEND GENRES ON HIS NEW LP, AVAILABLE AUGUST 20th ON TWIN LAKES

We are beyond psyched to announce the latest addition to our catalog...a new album by San Francisco's Michael Beach. On Golden Theft, Beach again teamed up with drummer Utrillo Kushner (Comets On Fire, Colossal Yes) and engineer Phil Manley (Wooden Shjips, Barn Owl) at Manley’s Lucky Cat Studios in San Francisco.  Featuring mostly brand new material and a few remastered songs from previous EPs, this long-player was mastered by Bob Weston (Shellac) and continues with the musical intensity for which Beach is known.  On this record, we also see a gifted songwriter continue to hone his craft, exploring and bending genres, and cementing his place as a vital artist in today’s sonic landscape. Golden Theft comes out on vinyl in a gorgeous gatefold jacket (free poster and download code inside) on August 20 on Twin Lakes, the day Beach kicks off a US East/West Coast tour to support the record. You can listen to some of the new songs and order the album through this Bandcamp pre-order link. 

Beach has earned high praise for his previous work, most notably for his cassette-only Mountains + Valleys EP. Terminal Boredom made Greg Cartwright (Oblivions) comparisons, and Aquarius Records had this to say: “Hooky and a little bit heavy, driving and catchy like crazy, and that tempo shift just kills us every time, so unexpected, but so cool…..drifting from crunchy post punk, to woozy psychedelic drift, to countrified rust belt songsmithery, and several other stops in between... Gorgeous stuff for sure."  

NASHVILLE'S OUTER BLUES DUO TTOTALS JOINS TWIN LAKES

We are beyond psyched to announce the latest addition to our catalog...a new 7-inch by Nashville’s outer blues duo Ttotals. These guys reached out to us about a year ago, and we were immediately sucked into their dark, brooding twisters of sound, featuring leagues-deep drums and haunting vocals, scorched-earth guitars, and flashes of sampled electronics...a careening vortex performing a muddy dance stomp along the Mississippi Delta as it flings the blues up to the heavens. So we invited them to play our showcase at the STPP Music Fest a few months later, and they were even better live! The band will be hitting the road in support of Spectrums of Light on April 19, which sees its official release on April 26, the day Brian (guitars/vocals) and Marty (drums/electronics) arrive in Austin, TX to make their first appearance at the always awesome Austin Psych Fest.

Tour dates:

April 19th - Kansas City, KS, Art Closet

April 20th - Denver, CO, Sidewinder

April 21st - Denver, CO, In-store at Wax Trax Records

April 24th - Albuquerque, NM, Gold House

April 25th - Lubbock, TX, TBA

April 26th,27th & 28th - Austin Psych Fest

April 29th - New Orleans, LA, TBA

April 30th - Memphis, TN, Murphy's  

Spectrums of Light was recorded and mixed by Tate Eskew at Zero Art Studios and mastered by Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, Spectrum) at Atlantis Sound in Rugby, England. It will be available in both vinyl (limited to 300) and digital formats from our website and most online stores on April 26, 2013. But you can listen to it and pre-order it right now over here. Then check out their previous releases over on the Ttotals Bandcamp page. Here they are perfoming a song off their 2012 self-released Silver on Black 10".

DWIGHT SMITH ON BALCONY TV

Dwight was asked to perform on a recent Austin edition of BalconyTV. Watch him perform "Blue Ghost"...

TWIN LAKES FUNDRAISER FOR THE ROCKAWAYS

While it's been over a month since Superstorm Sandy reared her ugly head, some communities are still struggling to get back on their feet. In Queens there are still many people in the Rockaways without shelter or electricity. 

So a few weeks ago we developed a plan to raise money to help this community rebuild. We commissioned Twin Lakes' own Dwight Smith to record a cover of the Ramone's "Rockaway Beach". Dwight's unique take on this Ramones classic is truly inspired -- a gorgeous arrangement that's hypnotic, a little sad, but full of hope. Listen and download it here. All proceeds from your downloads will go to the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance. But that's not the only way you can contribute to this fundraiser and score this little gem...

We also commissioned master silkscreener Andy Perkowski from Black Unicorn Studios to design some Twin Lakes t-shirts. Featuring the Twin Lakes logo in negative on black 100% cotton, they come in both men and women's styles, and all purchases come with an immediate free download of Dwight Smith's "Rockaway Beach". As you can see from the photo, Andy did an amazing job on these, and between now and the New Year, all t-shirt sales will go toward this fundraising campaign. We think they'd make for a pretty rad gift for the holidays, or grab one for yourself here.

NEW ALBUM, TOUR FROM DWIGHT SMITH

Earlier this year we shared Austin's Dwight Smith and his musical vision with the world with the release of his debut offering--a critically-acclaimed virtual 7-inch titled Plumed Serpent. Now we are proud to announce the October 23rd release of his highly-anticipated debut album Lateral Drifts, available on CD and DL. Somewhere in his travels across two continents, he seems to have developed hands with a touch like Nick Drake's, a voice as powerful as Marc Bolan's and a lyrical ability all to himself. 

On his latest effort, ringing voices, plaintive horns, and sparkling keys drift over a sunset river of shimmering, spiraling, tumbling fingerpicked melodies, carrying us to a place of shared fragile exhilaration. Your viewers can stream the album now and submit pre-orders for the CD here. 

Dwight is currently touring the Northeast in support of Lateral Drifts. See the full list of tour dates below.

 

TWIN LAKES SHOWCASE AT THIS YEAR'S STPP MUSIC FEST

OCTOBER 6TH, 2012 at the Velvet Lounge, 915 U St. NW, 4PM-Midnight: 
All-Day All-Night Rock and Noise Open House Party, 18+ $10, 21+ $8

An afternoon, evening, and night of psych rock, heavy rock, folk, noisy composition, and compositional noise featuring Twin Lakes artists and some of our other favorite bands, like Nashville's Ttotals and from Drag City Records, P.G. Six! Plus a very special performance by a large-scale all-star rock orchestra from D.C. and abroad performing compositions from Erik Satie's Furniture Music collection, led by acclaimed guitarist/composer and Georgetown music prof Ben Harbert.

 

SOURCE OF YELLOW JOINS TWIN LAKES TO RELEASE NEW EP

We are thrilled to announce the newest addition to the Twin Lakes catalog -- Source of Yellow's The Said, a three-song EP of unique beauty, offering a heady and guileless take on playing against the psych-wardens, the noise-canon, the must-listen-to and hard-listed. 

This Brooklyn trio doesn't just trade on the value of knowing the old explorations, but instead take the most outré edges and sonics from our masters and contemporaries as their starting point -- then they sing to them and coax them into an intimate and amplified complexity. 

On The Said SOY yanks energy from space to sling it hard back to the earth:

I. The Said: Two notes urgent and sparkling.  An incantation. Bass and drums suddenly pushing harder than expected with an exhortation to come along on ferocious drops through knotted loops, speed changes, and rattling hard turns.  You are locked on a variegated three-loop ride from the ether ending hard and fun in the dirt. 

II. 1 & 9: A smile and then a swooning sleep. A heartbeat, a jangle like cicadas and the breeze in summer, a tangle of descending arpeggios as birdsong. A further fall into a dreamless theta state. Days or years are passing.

III. Maybe!: Then a heady wakeful hum. A dancing lurch with a reedy ostinato and a yearning voice. A final harmonic convergence that seems to leave tracer notes arcing back to us and gently fading while we finish listening. 

How much fun to execute these compositions and improvisations! How much care and deftly hidden preparation to start the listener at 40000+ feet for a controlled free fall, romp, and recovery! At the beginning and end of it all are three people making brilliant noises sometimes knowingly, it seems, and sometimes maybe acting the vessel, but probably trembling and smiling all the while. 

For this release, the band commissioned NYC-based visual artist Pali Kashi for the cover art. The arresting Upstate, evokes SOY’s sonics -- their ability to pull in the harmolodic for a hug with the gothic in a muddy dance stomp, where the psychedelic spectrum encompasses true tonal weirdness as well as compelling housebroken sounds. This work of haunting beauty will be available September 18th in a limited run of 50 archival quality prints, each of which will come with a free download code. Buy it here.

-- MK.

RECENT CASSETTE OFFERINGS BY MICHAEL BEACH AND ELECTRIC JELLYFISH REVIEWED IN THE BIG TAKEOVER

Some glowing words by the man himself, founder and editor-in-chief Jack Rabid...

ELECTRIC JELLYFISH KICK OFF US TOUR!

Electric Jellyfish recently kicked off their 2012 US tour by performing an in-store at Oakland's 1234 Go Records this past Wednesday and will continue to wind their way around the country till early April. This is their first US tour in two years, and this time around it will include SXSW appearances and shows with Aussie legends feedtime, The Wedding Present, Spectre Folk, Tall Firs, Noveller, Hank IV, Golden Boys, The Men, Carlton Melton, and label mates MYTY KONKEROR.

The SXSW details are as follows:

Electric Jellyfish are playing two showcases. One is at Headhunters Patio on Wednesday March 14th in the 11:00 time slot, and the other is one we're really not supposed to say much about as it's not an official SXSW showcase. Let's just say it's happening at the end of the week and was curated by the best independent radio station on the planet, so you know the line-up will be amazing.

EJ frontman Michael Beach is also playing a solo set at SXSW on March 15th at The Hideout with MYTY KONKEROR's Michael Kiefer on drums in the 11:00 time slot.

A full list of dates for the entire tour can be found here. And don't forget to check out the limited edition tour cassette for their new single/EP "Trouble Coming Down". These are sure to sell out on the road, but we'll be sure to hold on to a few copies at our online store for those who can't make it out to a show. Order soon before they're gone.

ARTIST DEBUT: DWIGHT SMITH'S "PLUMED SERPENT"

Today we're proud to introduce Dwight Smith and his musical vision to the world with the release of his debut offering--a virtual 7-inch titled Plumed Serpent. We were blown away the first time we heard the demos he sent us, and Twin Lakes co-founder Steubs articulates just why... 

Plumed Serpent. Dwight Smith. 

 

Our bodies are driven to sustain and reproduce without worries of a greater meaning. It's no wonder that our minds and hearts are similarly driven forward to understand and create, all the while vexed by how the facts of the physical world may or may not add up to very much at all. Our faculties might just make us tragic because they allow us to dream of and define beauty, completeness and peace that seemingly can't exist in our physical world.

 

But what is more hopeful than filling a void with ringing voices?  What better answer can we give monstrous solipsism than to write of what we see and feel so that others will understand? Dwight Smith seems to be heeding this call when he gives us two sad, hopeful, and gorgeous songs that pull us through these questions, pull us into him, and push us up and out to a place of shared fragile exhilaration.  In each song, Smith pulls us behind his minor chords and harmonies towards what will certainly be a maelstrom and wreck but instead drops us gently each time into glorious but sadly complex resolution. The questions, maybe the void too, are still there, but we feel different about them -- a little lighter, a little tired, happy to be on the positive side of materiality, and slightly sympathetic to the necessary negative. 

 

When Smith sings that 'everyone wants to talk like they know something/I don't know anything' it's not a statement of defeat, but a declaration dripping with breathless epistemological glee. It's Buddha smiling from the front of a runaway train. It's Icarus realizing his glory will actually be his fall. When he sings later on about the need for forgiveness or about our own falls, the songs ring out, resonate and amplify an out-sized hope and love for the world and humanity There's an angel living in this music, or somewhere in Dwight Smith. 

Plumed Serpent is now available for download on a pay-what-you-want basis over at Dwight's Bandcamp page where you can also purchase a hand-made origami-style CD-R that includes two bonus tracks recorded live at a recent performance.